Good morning Pubsters, a great morning to get out in your local area and find one of the many Gonski events that will be around schools and other public areas today. I’ll be at our local Woolies and Farmers Markets with. Team ov volunteers gathering signatures for the campaign to persuade the Turnbull Government that the next two years of funding are critical and that in marginal seats like mine, the effect of not equitably funding all schools could be electoral death.
Alternatively, go to http://www.igiveagonski.com.au and register there.
We are not giving up!

But don’t we all want the electoral death of this farce of a government?

Good luck today, and try to persuade as many as you can to vote against the government come the election. Please tell them the only way to make sure the full Gonski funding is restored is to change government.

“ The truth is that Roman history offers very few direct lessons for us, and no simple list of dos and dont’s.”
(Mary Beard ..on Roman History).

She is not quite correct with this “truth”.

The astute historian does not look for direct correlation, rather; a continuity of behavioral patterns that humanity cannot help but follow when caught in a similar situation..much like the predictability of animal behaviour so lengthily studied and perfected by humanity everywhere. There is a predictability in how people will react en-masse to certain situations when suddenly confronted…usually in panic! But also when a situation becomes financially dire and requires an economic solution. In a social mind, there is a inclination to involve the whole community in a “share and share alike” value. In the capital mind, it becomes a “grab, hold , protect and run” scenario.

So it was back in the time of Caracalla, when the might of Rome was diminished by the reality that there were few or no more city-states to conquer and plunder for gold and booty (Like Corinth, Carthage, Egypt..where masses of booty were congregated in the one city/state treasury ) had to be replaced with commerce of trade and manufacture. Likewise, and in consequence of; human slaves were also in short supply and hence Caracalla made everyone in the Roman world a “citizen”..so they could be more efficiently organized and taxed.

The third catastrophe with the loss of new States to conquer, was the reality of a huge standing army that had to be released from duty….and hence they then had the problem of many well trained and equipped rogue warriors/ delinquents forming bands and roaming the countryside robbing and threatening the locals and in the end becoming mercenaries for any tribal chief that wanted to work out a grudge against their neighbour…(read : Taliban) anarchy ensured.

The capital based west has used the same rapine and plunder principles that served the Roman Army (read ; Oligarchy) so well in their colonies and captured territories. However, with the demise of the slave “trade” and the exhaustion of sweat-shops in the Dickensian era of industrialization and the rise of Unionism and fair pay, the capitalists have gone further and further into the now impoverished post colony nations to draw from their pool of desperation to search out cheap (read ; newslave ) labour.

One could easily draw a parallel to the construct of the post colonial “British Commonwealth” to Caracalla’s “everyone a citizen” act.

This repeat of a pattern that demonstrates the lack of imagination in the opportunist mindset of that side of society does almost guarantee not only similar implementation techniques (sans technology) but similar outcome. And it is in that “outcome” that the political middle class ought to be concerned..For while at this point there is ample shelter underneath an obedient, conservative and well equipped military organization, now as in the past, it must be acknowledged that every soldier / police has a parent / brother? / sister?/ lover? In the citizen body…and when the ruling class , conveniently and securely “gated and above” the trials and tribulations of the everyday lives of it’s citizens, does begin to harass and corporally punish it’s own through cruel economic policy or physical treatment , it is also submitting the same to those relatives of the very military that it relies upon for it’s safety from the mob.

The final lesson that can be gleaned most exactly from ancient history is the sorry evidence of what was the consequence of such arrogance..Take the lessons Mycenae, six times sacked and burnt to it’s foundations…not as it turns out by a invading foreign army, but as shown by the lack of any evidence of foreign weaponry in-situ in archaeological digs ; by the uprising of it’s own citizens..and if the evidence of these modern civil wars are anything to go by, there is little sympathy for any opposition side when a count is done on surviving prisoners.

The conclusion to it all must be that while one cannot attempt to “read history” as in the act of turning of a page in a book, one can, with astute application and worldly experience “read” certain physical inevitability logically following on from repeated behavioural patterns constructed in the mindset of an unimaginative ruling political class. The lesson from Roman times ; “DON’T DO IT , DICKHEAD !”

Gonski update, great morning with lots of good feedback. Not an especially obvious fondness for the government just talking to the folks outside Woolies. Now that we are part of Eden-Monaro, the nominal 2.5% margin here could be a significant factor if Malcontent can ever get himself to do something.

Coverage of the Syrian war will be remembered as one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the American press. Reporting about carnage in the ancient city of Aleppo is the latest reason why.

For three years, violent militants have run Aleppo. Their rule began with a wave of repression. They posted notices warning residents: “Don’t send your children to school. If you do, we will get the backpack and you will get the coffin.” Then they destroyed factories, hoping that unemployed workers would have no recourse other than to become fighters. They trucked looted machinery to Turkey and sold it…

This does not fit with Washington’s narrative. As a result, much of the American press is reporting the opposite of what is actually happening. Many news reports suggest that Aleppo has been a “liberated zone” for three years but is now being pulled back into misery.

US propaganda keeps telling us that ISIS hide among civilians and that Russian bombs are killing large numbers of civilians. Is this also true of the bombs that the American planes drop?

Since June the United States has carried out at least three air attacks against Islamist commanders in Libya, usually with a view to preventing the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, from using its expanding territory in the country as a springboard for attacks in the region, or on the West. The Sunni extremist group has been spreading into Libya from its bases in Syria and Iraq.

An anti-smoking ad has popped up in Russia featuring an image of President Obama and warning “smoking kills more people than Obama.”
Russian politician Dmitry Gudkov posted a picture of the sign on social media this week, adding that he was “disgusted and ashamed” by the images in Moscow.

It’s unclear who’s behind the advertisement at the bus shelter, and no one has come forward to claim credit, according to The Guardian.

“Smoking kills more people than Obama, although he kills lots and lots of people,” the ad states, depicting Obama with a cigarette. “Don’t smoke, don’t be like Obama.”

A spokesman responsible for the mayor’s department on advertisements told Russia radio RSN the advertisement would be removed, according to Newsweek.

Obama said in November he hadn’t smoked a cigarette since his signature healthcare law passed in 2010. Some speculated over a photo where Obama appeared to hold a pack last summer, though the White House later said he wasn’t holding cigarettes.

Here is the Genevieve Waltz and theme from that movie. I think Larry Adler was blacklisted in the US because of the McCarthyist purges in the 1950s. So when the movie was released they originally left his name off the credits.